Public Accounts Committee on Oct. 9th, 2024

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I heard him retract the comments, so I would ask you to go back to the blues and check, because I heard Nathaniel Erskine-Smith retract. He said, “I retract”.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Mr. Erskine-Smith, did you, in fact, withdraw?

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Are you asking about my remarks in relation to Mr. Perkins or the “I'm not talking about bathtubs, buddy”?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

It's the cursing. Mr. Drouin is under the impression—

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I would be pleased to retract my comments. I assume you will also ask Mr. Perkins to retract his comments when he impugned my integrity.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I'll take that as a no, Mr. Erskine-Smith.

I'm not going to be the schoolyard nanny. You have the floor, but you're conducting yourself in a manner that is not appropriate.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

You gave us less than an hour's notice, Chair, if you want to talk about appropriate behaviour.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Mr. Erskine-Smith, you repeatedly complain about this committee's schedule. As I said to you in response to an email, you need to work with your team and your whip if it's not conducive to your schedule.

You have the floor again.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Again, the threshold for a breach of privilege is incredibly high. We have to take this incredibly seriously when it occurs. Again, running down the list, there's falsifying; deliberately misleading; falsifying documents without reasonable excuse; refusing to provide information or produce papers formally required by the House without reasonable excuse; disobeying a lawful order of the House; interfering with or obstructing a person who is carrying out a lawful order of the House; bribing or attempting to bribe a member to influence the member's conduct in respect of proceedings of the House; intimidating, preventing or hindering a witness from giving evidence; assaulting, threatening or disadvantaging a member or a former member on account of the member's conduct in Parliament; and divulging or publishing the content of any report or evidence of a select committee before it has been reported to the House.

I would love to understand, when Mr. Bains comes and says, “I don't recall”, how that amounts to a breach of privilege. It might be insufficient. I say let's have him back to answer an additional two hours of questions. No one's hiding from accountability. Let's have him back.

What is happening now is a waste of our time. You might say, “Well, you guys are wasting time at the committee.” Do you know why we're spending time at this committee? To make sure that this doesn't become a waste of House time. We all know what's happening in the House right now. We have privilege motions through which the Conservatives have a weaponized process to ensure that the House cannot function.

If this privilege motion were to pass, which would be absurd because it's not anywhere close to a breach of privilege, the Speaker will swat it away, but if it were to pass, if we as a committee were to send it to the Speaker, we are going to waste countless hours. We're going to waste days. We know this because we see it right now. We're going to waste days of House time on something that is absolutely frivolous. If we want to get answers from Mr. Bains, let's have him back for two hours within 14 days.

Please, let's stop wasting our time and making a mockery of the process of the House.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you, Mr. Erskine-Smith.

Ms. Khalid, you have the floor, please.

Oh, I picked up yesterday's speaking note. Pardon me—I jumped one.

Mr. Drouin is first.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a few things before I get going.

I will say that I'm a bit surprised. This is the first time this has happened to me in nine years. I had the pleasure of serving with an opposition chair by the name of Tom Lukiwski, who is an honourable man and who was a good chair at government operations. He never once called a meeting with 50 minutes' notice. I want to be respectful of everybody's time. I don't think that is being respectful of everybody's time.

On this particular matter, if we want to continue discussing it, I am happy to sign a 106(4) with the opposition. I'm sure they will want to come back next week. I'm happy to sign a 106(4) with you guys, so we can get to work next week if this discussion is not over. I will happily draft it and we can all sign it, because I know this is very important to you guys.

Secondly, I will talk about the bullying tactics of two members of this particular committee—Mr. Perkins and Mr. Genuis—who have instructed their fan club to call my office.

I want you guys to know that I've instructed my staff to give out your phone numbers. They're calling my office and then they're calling your offices. That's just so we're clear. You can do your little videos outside. You can do your Facebook videos after this. Know that you can do that and instruct your fan club to call my office, but they're calling your offices afterwards.

[Jake Stewart, Conservative, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Can we get selfies?

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Absolutely...if you want selfies.

I thought we had some decent respect. I've never done that to other members of Parliament. I don't care if you do that to me. I just want you to know the consequences of what happens afterwards. Your staff will be busier at your offices. They're redirected to your offices. It will be a pleasure for me to continue doing that.

I'll move to the matter at hand.

Again, I'm surprised. Mr. Perkins has a short memory. He knows Mr. Bains asked the very same question. He's saying that Mr. Bains, somehow, did not answer. However, Mr. Bains said, “I don't recall a specific conversation, but I would say that it was not uncommon for me to reach out to CEOs to engage them in the board selection process.” I don't know what he'd call that, but that's an answer. Mr. Perkins doesn't like the answer, because he's trying very hard to tie SDTC to ministers when there is simply no connection there.

He knows that. I'm quite surprised that Mr. Perkins, who once worked at CIBC, would tarnish the reputation of somebody who's worked at CIBC, as well as the institution of CIBC.

That's exactly what you're doing. You're tarnishing the reputation of private citizens. It's unfortunate.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

He's not a private citizen.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

He is a private citizen now.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

He served in public office years ago.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

The wheel goes around, my friend. One day, it will be you in front of that committee.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

No, it won't, because I won't have friends who are corrupt.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Mr. Perkins....

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Again, why are we doing this study if the Conservatives have already made up their minds? They are not interested in investigating this stuff. They are using words like “corrupt”. Obviously, they're calling me corrupt and blah, blah, blah. It's simply that they're not interested in making this a study. They're not interested in the words of the Auditor General. They're not interested in what the commissioner of the RCMP said. They're not interested. All they're interested in—we saw it yesterday, again.... Mr. Genuis laughed at me the other day. They are treating this committee like their own little private Facebook studio, and it's a shame.

Have some decency for democracy—just a bit.

Sometimes I wish the kids in short pants on this committee would grow up. Some of them have and some of them haven't.

Mr. Chair, I would love to hear from the opposition about my proposition to sign a 106(4). We can do it right now and come back next week. We can spend a full day talking about this. I'm sure you'd love to come back, too, Mr. Chair. I know you would. The tactics you've used today.... I want to warn you that we have a lot of chairs who can do the same thing to other members. The precedent you have set for other committees is completely uncalled for. You're not being respectful of everybody's time on this particular committee. Tom Lukiwski would never have done that. I'm not sure who's running the show now, but they obviously have no respect for members of Parliament.

I'm close. I'll be here next week. I don't mind coming here. I can spend a week. I'm sure we can come back on Thanksgiving Monday, if you like. I'm here. I'm ready. I'm still not hearing the opposition say they want to sign a 106(4). This proves how dedicated they are to this particular cause.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

You don't understand the process. At a basic level, you don't need a—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Order, Mr. Genuis.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Actually, Mr. Genuis, you can sign a 106(4), and you have to deal with the proper matter of a 106(4) at first. Then you deal with the suspension, just so you know. Check the Standing Orders, buddy.

Here we are on the matter of this question of privilege, which has been raised without even having to hear completely what the member said. This was submitted half an hour before the testimony was completed, so we know this was all made up. How serious are these guys about finding the truth? They're not.

They're not serious. We're here to talk about a bogus motion that has nothing to do with our study. Mr. Perkins had a chance to question the witness in June. I don't know how much time he needs to ask questions, but give me a break, it's not that difficult. In fact, I'm surprised to see that the other coalition parties are helping the Conservative Party debate this motion.

Furthermore, I find it absurd that, on a number of occasions, whether they are from the Conservative Party, the Bloc Québécois or even, on a few occasions, the NDP—it wasn't Mr. Cannings, for whom I have a lot of respect—members have mentioned that they weren't satisfied with a witness's answer. The witness wasn't a former Liberal cabinet minister, so they didn't raise a question of privilege. I find that a bit strange. A standard is a standard. In my opinion, it seems to me that the same standards and criteria should be applied to all proposals. If we believe that a witness has not adequately answered our questions and a question of privilege is raised about one witness but not about another, I wonder what about the desire to know the truth.

I'm asking to be put back on the list, Mr. Chair.

I believe Ms. Khalid is next. I think she's having a conversation with Mr. Cannings. Out of respect for Ms. Khalid, so she can finish this conversation, I will continue with my intervention.

I think the motion moved by my colleague Mr. Perkins is too strict for the time being. Mr. Erskine‑Smith did a good job of explaining that matters of privilege must be taken seriously. Just because he's a former Liberal cabinet minister doesn't mean that all of a sudden we have to become partisan on this. I'm pleading with the opposition members to withdraw this motion. We agree to reinvite Mr. Bains to testify before this committee.

I have a theory that could explain why we believe that Mr. Bains didn't answer certain questions. I think it's because the official opposition keeps changing the players. On our side, it's always the same people, but on the other side, there's a first and a second team. It looks like there are members aspiring to join the pack on the other side.

If you don't remember the answers that were given to other members, it's up to you to go back and review the blues. I'm just looking at the blues right now, and I can't for the life of me figure out how Mr. Bains hasn't answered the questions appropriately. Of course, the opposition members are looking for a culprit. They want to be able to point the finger. They've already accused him by saying that Mr. Bains was the instigator of the green fund from Sustainable Development Technology Canada, or SDTC. They accused him directly without even showing any evidence of Mr. Bains' direct involvement in SDTC.

I would remind you that neither the Auditor General, the McCarthy Tétrault report nor the Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton report provided evidence. I'm convinced that the current review of contributions from SDTC recipients will raise this issue, and it will be said that, ultimately, there was too much interference from the minister's office or the minister himself at SDTC. That's the crux of the matter, and that's the connection the opposition is trying to make, when there is none.

So we're going around in circles and wasting our time. We're wasting the time of this study. As I said before, I'm starting to question our collective jurisdiction to find the answers we're looking for.

If I understand correctly, the opposition is saying to hell with the Auditor General and all those who audited this matter. All these people want is to create a hypothetical link with a minister who had nothing to do with it, except for the fact that his department signed a funding agreement with an organization. However, the department isn't responsible for the day-to-day administration of this organization; that's what the opposition doesn't seem to understand.

With that, Mr. Chair, I'm going to stay on the list, but I'm going to take a little break and have a couple of glasses of water.

I give the floor to Ms. Khalid.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

That's great.

You've been added to the list again.

Ms. Khalid, you have the floor.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I'm going to raise some concerns here. I had a full day planned. My constituents need me for so many different things. For this meeting to be called within.... For me, it was half an hour's notice. As you can see, my hair is still wet. I'm trying to get through the day. I had to change a lot of what was on my schedule today.

I'm not sure why you would do that, Chair. Perhaps I can seek some clarification from you and the clerk before I continue with my remarks.